I've been learning branding for the past year then one day I found your channel and subscribed right away. I use your contents as a foundation to look for a deeper knowledge. Thanks a lot Stephen! Keep growing!
Hey Stephen , top notch video mate, really enjoyed watching this and very well articulated. What I often struggle with when it comes to brand process is how to translate all the documents that I have sent out to the client during the strategy part of the process, all the data, feedback, and answers to the questions that I send out via google docs. I think to myself well this is the part of the strategy process that I always thought was the right way to way to go about it, things like audience profiles, mission statements etc But's its all just words to me, and realms of pages of documents. How to I start to unpack all that and TRANSLATE that information into a visual brand. eg: When I think of things like my target audience is for married women 35-45, 2 kids, upper class lifestyle etc (random audience segment). I think how does that fact that they have two kids or married going to be of any use to me when I am trying to come up with a visual for the brand? That's why when I am doing these kind of brand process steps I feel like I am doing it because that is part of the process, rather than feeling like it is helping me and informing my design process when it comes to excuting on ideas on a visual for the brand. Hope that makes sense?
I think you need to really try to empathise with the target customer and put yourself in their shoes. How would having two kids impact on your life? How does marriage affect the decisions that you would make? How does your lifestyle and archetype affect the brands that you choose to align with? How can you show similar qualities to those brands but in a way that differentiates? If you create an ideal customer persona you should know what they want, need and like, which should give you a good understanding of how to target them
Hey Conko, Great question. Something I used to struggle with too. Your getting stuck on the translation of your data gathering to a visual representation. The reality is, in order to connect the brand with that married woman with kids, we need to define what we want to mean to her and why we want her to remember our brand. This positioning then leads into personality development (i.e. what characteristics do we want to display to appeal to this woman). Its through those characteristics we can translate words into visuals... Eg.. Are we Friendly, humble, modern, hip etc all of which we can communicate through colour typography shape etc... But before we get to that point, it's critical to define that position and personality so we have clarity in the characteristics we want to display Hope this helps Conko
@@BrandMasterAcademy Thanks for your feedback Stephen, yes that did help thanks. So when you say that you need to define the postioning of the brand, does discovering the answers to the questions 'Who we want it to appeal to?' 'What we want the brand to mean to her? and Why we want her to remember our brand?, give you the answers to those difficult postioning question? Do you have any persoanlity > visual translation examples I can see?
@@danfox6137 Hey Dan, thanks for your response too, a combination of reading both your's and Stephen response helped clairy things a lot! But as I said to Stephen would be cool to see some visual translation examples of personality traits.
Honestly Stephen i cannot thank you enough for the super valuable info you give, your youtube channel is a mine of gold, the further i watch the more i learn. Thank you so much! I have question please: it seems to me that from the #11th step we have entered the realm of marketing...is it feasible to eliminate the conqeunet steps (else the last step: brand management) and outsource it to a marketing agency ? or you have to do all fo them yourself?
Hi Stephen! These are value bombs! Stephen, how and what will you say to your client when you are just starting out? Any tips on what to do first? Thanks!
This has added more to the bits & pieces of brand strategy I've bee scavenging. One of the few things I don't get is what guarantees do you give the client? Is your fee based on the effectiveness of the strategy?
This is a tough one because many business owners are obsessed about ROI. The reality is there are no guarantees. Point to your past successes and the contrast between a visual brand and a strategic brand and remind them that it’s an investment for the long game Use analogies... having an engine rather than a paint job is no guarantee you’ll get where you want to go... but it gives you a vehicle to make it possible...
@@BrandMasterAcademy Okay. Thank you for the response. I suppose I'll have to take on smaller/free projects till I'm confident enough to look at big clients & tell them to invest their money in me.
Thanks for your video! For me it is always an issue when it comes to developing customer persona. I mean Real people and their struggles problems and needs. Not just some fictional demographical characteristics or even pains. How do you study the audience in practice and dather final personas based on this info? Thanks
The reality is your persona is a fictional character as it must represent the group of people that is your audience. You can base it off a customer or start with a fictional character and refine as you interview customers. You can also look at competitors followers and reviews for insights on real people
Good question Mattia Think of your differentiation strategy as your reason to pick your brand over another. It doesnt need to be revolutionary technology and you dont need to be disrupting the market. You simply need a clear reason. Think of your differentiation strategy as the answer to this question from your prospect "Why should I choose you over your competitors?" You NEED a reason to give them... Without one, they have no reason to become a customer
Brand Master Academy Yes I understand , and usually here the reason is: we’re cheaper.. Ok, let me share my situation: I do branding in China and the companies usually have no idea of anything; there’s no story, no positioning nor reason why.. nor they provide me useful materials. I have to come up with everything (by myself), so I was wondering if there was a simple strategy I can use to overcome these issues.
@@matianlong7907 i recently learned it is wrong to present your business as the cheapest, rather say affordable. now if you do all of the aforementioned for these businesses you'd be should be earning more; a major reason why you need to answer the question of why the customers should choose you over your competition.
Hello Stephen. This might seem like a silly question, as I’m a newbie to brand strategy, but is the discovery session the only time you meet with the client throughout the brand development process or are there other meetings that you should have? It seems like you have the discovery session, then do everything else on your own.. Thanks!
Every client is differernt. Really, you should be aiming to complete most of the brand strategy in collabouration with the leadership team in a workshop environment, though many smaller clients wont have a budget to cover a multi day workshop. Depending on the client you should aim to have engagement / collab sessions to confirm the direction throughout
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I am a brand management master's student, should have paid my tuition fee in your account. your content is premium.
🙏🙏🙏 Brand Master Secrets goes much deeper
I've been learning branding for the past year then one day I found your channel and subscribed right away. I use your contents as a foundation to look for a deeper knowledge. Thanks a lot Stephen! Keep growing!
Keep learning Agung 🙏
Awesome video!
Glad you enjoyed it
Hey Stephen , top notch video mate, really enjoyed watching this and very well articulated.
What I often struggle with when it comes to brand process is how to translate all the documents that I have sent out to the client during the strategy part of the process, all the data, feedback, and answers to the questions that I send out via google docs. I think to myself well this is the part of the strategy process that I always thought was the right way to way to go about it, things like audience profiles, mission statements etc
But's its all just words to me, and realms of pages of documents. How to I start to unpack all that and TRANSLATE that information into a visual brand. eg: When I think of things like my target audience is for married women 35-45, 2 kids, upper class lifestyle etc (random audience segment). I think how does that fact that they have two kids or married going to be of any use to me when I am trying to come up with a visual for the brand? That's why when I am doing these kind of brand process steps I feel like I am doing it because that is part of the process, rather than feeling like it is helping me and informing my design process when it comes to excuting on ideas on a visual for the brand. Hope that makes sense?
I think you need to really try to empathise with the target customer and put yourself in their shoes. How would having two kids impact on your life? How does marriage affect the decisions that you would make? How does your lifestyle and archetype affect the brands that you choose to align with? How can you show similar qualities to those brands but in a way that differentiates? If you create an ideal customer persona you should know what they want, need and like, which should give you a good understanding of how to target them
Hey Conko,
Great question. Something I used to struggle with too.
Your getting stuck on the translation of your data gathering to a visual representation.
The reality is, in order to connect the brand with that married woman with kids, we need to define what we want to mean to her and why we want her to remember our brand. This positioning then leads into personality development (i.e. what characteristics do we want to display to appeal to this woman).
Its through those characteristics we can translate words into visuals... Eg.. Are we Friendly, humble, modern, hip etc all of which we can communicate through colour typography shape etc...
But before we get to that point, it's critical to define that position and personality so we have clarity in the characteristics we want to display
Hope this helps Conko
@@BrandMasterAcademy Thanks for your feedback Stephen, yes that did help thanks. So when you say that you need to define the postioning of the brand, does discovering the answers to the questions 'Who we want it to appeal to?' 'What we want the brand to mean to her? and Why we want her to remember our brand?, give you the answers to those difficult postioning question?
Do you have any persoanlity > visual translation examples I can see?
@@danfox6137 Hey Dan, thanks for your response too, a combination of reading both your's and Stephen response helped clairy things a lot! But as I said to Stephen would be cool to see some visual translation examples of personality traits.
incredible!
👍👍👍
Really useful overview Stephen 🙌 You're killing it at the minute, my favourite branding expert :) Keep these gems coming 👍
Cheers Dan... more gems lined up
Your content is great, but why the sound volume of the vignete is SO LOUD??
Thank you, this is a huge help!
You're welcome! 👍
Very useful
Glad to hear that
Honestly Stephen i cannot thank you enough for the super valuable info you give, your youtube channel is a mine of gold, the further i watch the more i learn. Thank you so much! I have question please: it seems to me that from the #11th step we have entered the realm of marketing...is it feasible to eliminate the conqeunet steps (else the last step: brand management) and outsource it to a marketing agency ? or you have to do all fo them yourself?
Thanks for your kind words... Absolutely... in fact, this would be my recommended path to most practitioners
Hi Stephen!
These are value bombs!
Stephen, how and what will you say to your client when you are just starting out? Any tips on what to do first?
Thanks!
"Thank you 🙏
Can you expand on the question... what exactly is your challenge"
@@BrandMasterAcademy Like, how will you say to your client that you are just starting as a strategist if they ask for a portfolio? Thanks Stephen!
This has added more to the bits & pieces of brand strategy I've bee scavenging. One of the few things I don't get is what guarantees do you give the client? Is your fee based on the effectiveness of the strategy?
This is a tough one because many business owners are obsessed about ROI.
The reality is there are no guarantees.
Point to your past successes and the contrast between a visual brand and a strategic brand and remind them that it’s an investment for the long game
Use analogies... having an engine rather than a paint job is no guarantee you’ll get where you want to go... but it gives you a vehicle to make it possible...
@@BrandMasterAcademy Okay. Thank you for the response. I suppose I'll have to take on smaller/free projects till I'm confident enough to look at big clients & tell them to invest their money in me.
Thanks for your video! For me it is always an issue when it comes to developing customer persona. I mean Real people and their struggles problems and needs. Not just some fictional demographical characteristics or even pains. How do you study the audience in practice and dather final personas based on this info? Thanks
The reality is your persona is a fictional character as it must represent the group of people that is your audience. You can base it off a customer or start with a fictional character and refine as you interview customers.
You can also look at competitors followers and reviews for insights on real people
You inspire me, and I look to follow in your brand strategy footsteps.
Much appreciated 🙏
Hi Stephen,
Is there a way to still create a brand without a proper differentiation?
Good question Mattia
Think of your differentiation strategy as your reason to pick your brand over another. It doesnt need to be revolutionary technology and you dont need to be disrupting the market.
You simply need a clear reason.
Think of your differentiation strategy as the answer to this question from your prospect "Why should I choose you over your competitors?"
You NEED a reason to give them... Without one, they have no reason to become a customer
Brand Master Academy
Yes I understand , and usually here the reason is: we’re cheaper..
Ok, let me share my situation:
I do branding in China and the companies usually have no idea of anything; there’s no story, no positioning nor reason why.. nor they provide me useful materials.
I have to come up with everything (by myself), so I was wondering if there was a simple strategy I can use to overcome these issues.
@@matianlong7907 i recently learned it is wrong to present your business as the cheapest, rather say affordable.
now if you do all of the aforementioned for these businesses you'd be should be earning more; a major reason why you need to answer the question of why the customers should choose you over your competition.
thank you
Welcome!
Hello Stephen.
This might seem like a silly question, as I’m a newbie to brand strategy, but is the discovery session the only time you meet with the client throughout the brand development process or are there other meetings that you should have? It seems like you have the discovery session, then do everything else on your own..
Thanks!
Every client is differernt. Really, you should be aiming to complete most of the brand strategy in collabouration with the leadership team in a workshop environment, though many smaller clients wont have a budget to cover a multi day workshop. Depending on the client you should aim to have engagement / collab sessions to confirm the direction throughout